The Kingdom of God: 11 - Who Is in the City, Who Is Out? (Part 2)
In the City: What about Old Testament (Jewish) saints? Are they a part of this first resurrection and this glorious reign in the City.
Of course.
Theirs was the first call, and those men who grasped and believed the promises of God are the original elect to whom the Kingdom was given.
They were not in their day given the Spirit in the measure given to His church, but the promises are theirs.
Ezekiel 37:12-14 spells this out: In explanation of the rising of the dry bones, God says, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves...
I will put My Spirit in you and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.
Get ready for it! This is going to be a VERY JEWISH kingdom! Not only will Abraham and Jacob and Moses and Joseph and David be there, but Jesus promised that His own Jewish apostles will sit on twelve thrones judging the kingdom! Paul says that Old Testament saints did not receive the promise (Hebrews 11:39, 40) in their day, but only because God was waiting on the rest of us to come in! Don't rule out the Jew.
It is His Kingdom first, then yours.
Nevertheless properly grafted Gentiles will be fully operational in that wonderful land of Immanuel.
There the King and the Queen rule.
The Queen, His bride, is YOU in Christ.
Notice how the "last" (Gentiles) become "first" in receiving the work of the Spirit in its fullness in this church age, while the first (the Jews) will not receive that until they are resurrected.
There's life outside the city, too.
There are kings and their kingdoms, for the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.
They will somehow bring glory to the City.
This reality demands a closer look and a discernment, to avoid blurring the two entities.
We begin with Daniel who in chapter 2 explains the king's dream in terms of the nations to follow him, and even their end-time disposition.
In 34-35, Nebuchadnezzar is said to have seen a stone cut without hands striking the image of the vision on its feet, representing end time nations.
At this time, all the elements of the statue disintegrate.
The stone? It becomes a great mountain and fills the world.
For at the end of history, a bloody end mind you, the God of heaven sets up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed (2:44) It shall break in pieces and consume all these nations.
In 7:11-12, Daniel's angel tells us that after the final kingdom is destroyed (we believe this to be revived Rome ruled by the man of sin) the other kingdoms (the rest of the world, I take it), though their "dominion" is taken away, their "lives" are prolonged.
Gentile nations are allowed to enter, sans leadership, into the millennium.
The Father tells the Son (Psalm 2: 6-9) to ask Him, and He will give Him the nations for His inheritance, and the ends of the earth for His possession.
He is in fact to rule these nations with a rod of iron.
That's why nations of today are warned (2:10-12) to get on God's good side.
Especially should nations be a friend to Israel.
Though Israel will be punished by God through Gentile nations who are so disposed to hate her anyway, those nations will in turn be punished for touching her.
Since just about every nation hates Israel in our day, the conflagration at the end will be nearly universal.
The mention of the rod of iron lets us know that the Gentile nations, though subservient to Christ, and yes, without Satan's temptations, as he will be bound for the duration, are still not heart-followers of Jesus.
Many of these citizens, we know not how many, yet they are as the "sand of the sea", will, when once given the Satanic nod at the end of the 1000 years, turn against Christ and be damned forever.
Isaiah has interesting insights about the Gentiles of this day.
(56:6-8).
The sons (for they shall give birth) of the foreigner (Gentile nation) who joins himself to the Lord, of his own will, will be allowed to come to the "mountain" where Jesus and the holy people reside.
God comments that not only the "outcasts of Israel" but "others" will be gathered to Him in that day.
Isaiah 2 The difference in people groups is brought out again in Isaiah 61:5.
It is indicated that the "foreigner" will be servant to the people of God, who will be a special "priesthood".
The saved people will eat the riches of the Gentiles.
Honor will be given to God's people.
That is why we must never seek it now.
The classic passage in Isaiah 2 is not for us, but for those special Gentiles allowed to live at this time.
All nations will flow to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.
Many will come and say, let us go up to the house of the Lord.
He will teach us.
We will walk in His paths.
He shall then judge between the nations, and rebuke many people.
Notice it is "many" not all.
The invitation to come will be ignored even still by some, but these folks will not be in any way a threat to the security of the age.
Jesus will rebuke them, and they will straighten up or else! All power will be in Jerusalem.
Isaiah later adds in 26:9-14 that when God's judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Oh yes, there were many other masters in centuries past, even trying to rule in the name of Jesus, but they and their memory are perished.
Out of Jerusalem will be sent those who will go to all the Gentiles and attempt to bring them to the City, Isaiah 66:20.
Those who come will fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 14:16-17, where it says that all who are left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King.
And if they do not go up, there will be no rain on their land! Some, it seems, hold out to the end.
The Gog-Magog confederation of Ezekiel is perhaps the "northern army" of Joel 2:20.
It is this slaughtered army that is being buried for seven months.
The remnant is pushed back to a barren and desolate land (as Siberia, for example).
Here the hatred for Jesus Christ, it seems, is allowed to fester, and in the very last of days, at the end of the 1000 years, this nation will once more be instrumental in an assault against God's priorities.
(Revelation 20) Individual nations are outlined in Isaiah 19:18-25, and 27:13.
Assyria, that we see as extinct today, will be in "most favored" status in that day, along with Egypt "My people", though according to Joel 3:19, Egypt will at first be a desolation, along with most of the world.
Egypt is differentiated of course in this passage from Israel, "My inheritance.
" These nations will be willingly, for the most part, subservient to the Kingdom people.
Psalm 47:3 and 8 foresee a time when God will subdue the peoples under "us", sitting on His holy throne, reigning over "the nations.
" Psalm 48 is a similar picture of the elevated Jerusalem having become the joy, and no longer the burden, of the whole earth, because it is the city of the Great King.
God is in her palaces now.
Terrified kings are seen passing by and marveling! So in Psalm 72:11, and in the oft-quoted Psalm 110, where the Lord(Father) says to the Lord (Jesus) to rule in the midst of His enemies! These are the conquered Gentile nations, whose leaders have already been destroyed.
Something like post-war Germany without Hitler.
Terrified, conforming.
For, vs.
5-6, He shall judge among the nations, and execute the heads of many countries.
Though conquered and serving, Zechariah puts the best face on it when he says in 2:10 and 11 that He is coming to dwell in our midst, and many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day.
They shall become My people.
Also, could it be, there are sorcerers, sexually immoral, murderers, the crop of evil that Satan will use at the end of 1000 years to lead a rebellion against that City, after he goes on a whirlwind campaign around the earth to deceive the nations again! All this in Revelation 20:7-10.
(Here dies the theory that says all unbelievers are dead until the 2nd resurrection, and that all the saints are with Christ in Heaven for that 1000 years.
) So the Bible is filled with details about what that Kingdom of God is going to look like.
What a day that will be!
Of course.
Theirs was the first call, and those men who grasped and believed the promises of God are the original elect to whom the Kingdom was given.
They were not in their day given the Spirit in the measure given to His church, but the promises are theirs.
Ezekiel 37:12-14 spells this out: In explanation of the rising of the dry bones, God says, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves...
I will put My Spirit in you and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.
Get ready for it! This is going to be a VERY JEWISH kingdom! Not only will Abraham and Jacob and Moses and Joseph and David be there, but Jesus promised that His own Jewish apostles will sit on twelve thrones judging the kingdom! Paul says that Old Testament saints did not receive the promise (Hebrews 11:39, 40) in their day, but only because God was waiting on the rest of us to come in! Don't rule out the Jew.
It is His Kingdom first, then yours.
Nevertheless properly grafted Gentiles will be fully operational in that wonderful land of Immanuel.
There the King and the Queen rule.
The Queen, His bride, is YOU in Christ.
Notice how the "last" (Gentiles) become "first" in receiving the work of the Spirit in its fullness in this church age, while the first (the Jews) will not receive that until they are resurrected.
There's life outside the city, too.
There are kings and their kingdoms, for the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.
They will somehow bring glory to the City.
This reality demands a closer look and a discernment, to avoid blurring the two entities.
We begin with Daniel who in chapter 2 explains the king's dream in terms of the nations to follow him, and even their end-time disposition.
In 34-35, Nebuchadnezzar is said to have seen a stone cut without hands striking the image of the vision on its feet, representing end time nations.
At this time, all the elements of the statue disintegrate.
The stone? It becomes a great mountain and fills the world.
For at the end of history, a bloody end mind you, the God of heaven sets up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed (2:44) It shall break in pieces and consume all these nations.
In 7:11-12, Daniel's angel tells us that after the final kingdom is destroyed (we believe this to be revived Rome ruled by the man of sin) the other kingdoms (the rest of the world, I take it), though their "dominion" is taken away, their "lives" are prolonged.
Gentile nations are allowed to enter, sans leadership, into the millennium.
The Father tells the Son (Psalm 2: 6-9) to ask Him, and He will give Him the nations for His inheritance, and the ends of the earth for His possession.
He is in fact to rule these nations with a rod of iron.
That's why nations of today are warned (2:10-12) to get on God's good side.
Especially should nations be a friend to Israel.
Though Israel will be punished by God through Gentile nations who are so disposed to hate her anyway, those nations will in turn be punished for touching her.
Since just about every nation hates Israel in our day, the conflagration at the end will be nearly universal.
The mention of the rod of iron lets us know that the Gentile nations, though subservient to Christ, and yes, without Satan's temptations, as he will be bound for the duration, are still not heart-followers of Jesus.
Many of these citizens, we know not how many, yet they are as the "sand of the sea", will, when once given the Satanic nod at the end of the 1000 years, turn against Christ and be damned forever.
Isaiah has interesting insights about the Gentiles of this day.
(56:6-8).
The sons (for they shall give birth) of the foreigner (Gentile nation) who joins himself to the Lord, of his own will, will be allowed to come to the "mountain" where Jesus and the holy people reside.
God comments that not only the "outcasts of Israel" but "others" will be gathered to Him in that day.
Isaiah 2 The difference in people groups is brought out again in Isaiah 61:5.
It is indicated that the "foreigner" will be servant to the people of God, who will be a special "priesthood".
The saved people will eat the riches of the Gentiles.
Honor will be given to God's people.
That is why we must never seek it now.
The classic passage in Isaiah 2 is not for us, but for those special Gentiles allowed to live at this time.
All nations will flow to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.
Many will come and say, let us go up to the house of the Lord.
He will teach us.
We will walk in His paths.
He shall then judge between the nations, and rebuke many people.
Notice it is "many" not all.
The invitation to come will be ignored even still by some, but these folks will not be in any way a threat to the security of the age.
Jesus will rebuke them, and they will straighten up or else! All power will be in Jerusalem.
Isaiah later adds in 26:9-14 that when God's judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Oh yes, there were many other masters in centuries past, even trying to rule in the name of Jesus, but they and their memory are perished.
Out of Jerusalem will be sent those who will go to all the Gentiles and attempt to bring them to the City, Isaiah 66:20.
Those who come will fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 14:16-17, where it says that all who are left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King.
And if they do not go up, there will be no rain on their land! Some, it seems, hold out to the end.
The Gog-Magog confederation of Ezekiel is perhaps the "northern army" of Joel 2:20.
It is this slaughtered army that is being buried for seven months.
The remnant is pushed back to a barren and desolate land (as Siberia, for example).
Here the hatred for Jesus Christ, it seems, is allowed to fester, and in the very last of days, at the end of the 1000 years, this nation will once more be instrumental in an assault against God's priorities.
(Revelation 20) Individual nations are outlined in Isaiah 19:18-25, and 27:13.
Assyria, that we see as extinct today, will be in "most favored" status in that day, along with Egypt "My people", though according to Joel 3:19, Egypt will at first be a desolation, along with most of the world.
Egypt is differentiated of course in this passage from Israel, "My inheritance.
" These nations will be willingly, for the most part, subservient to the Kingdom people.
Psalm 47:3 and 8 foresee a time when God will subdue the peoples under "us", sitting on His holy throne, reigning over "the nations.
" Psalm 48 is a similar picture of the elevated Jerusalem having become the joy, and no longer the burden, of the whole earth, because it is the city of the Great King.
God is in her palaces now.
Terrified kings are seen passing by and marveling! So in Psalm 72:11, and in the oft-quoted Psalm 110, where the Lord(Father) says to the Lord (Jesus) to rule in the midst of His enemies! These are the conquered Gentile nations, whose leaders have already been destroyed.
Something like post-war Germany without Hitler.
Terrified, conforming.
For, vs.
5-6, He shall judge among the nations, and execute the heads of many countries.
Though conquered and serving, Zechariah puts the best face on it when he says in 2:10 and 11 that He is coming to dwell in our midst, and many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day.
They shall become My people.
Also, could it be, there are sorcerers, sexually immoral, murderers, the crop of evil that Satan will use at the end of 1000 years to lead a rebellion against that City, after he goes on a whirlwind campaign around the earth to deceive the nations again! All this in Revelation 20:7-10.
(Here dies the theory that says all unbelievers are dead until the 2nd resurrection, and that all the saints are with Christ in Heaven for that 1000 years.
) So the Bible is filled with details about what that Kingdom of God is going to look like.
What a day that will be!